ENIGMATIC: CALLING

This is the new offering from Pagan's Mind, a new impressive band from Norway. I had their earlier albums and thought Celestial Entrance was an impressive work of Progressive Metal, so I decided to pick up this cd. At the first moment of the album, we are released into Pagan's Mind's world of Dark Progressive Power Metal. (Something like EVERGREY but with a twist). Overall, I must say the standout tracks were far and few after listening to this album about 5 times, I find this album to sound like leftovers of what "Celestial Entrance" left us. This picks off where they started from their magnus opus, Celestial Entrance was. Since I'm not very fond of bands repeating themselves over again without any variation, I must say this was a disappointment for me, this for me was just a slightly above average album of 2 1/2 stars, but since there were a couple of good songs, this album would be pushed up to 3 stars. Overall a big disappointment, but nevertheless, good and not highly recommended. I would recommend Celestial Entrance for beginners instead.

Prog Metal is alive and well in Norway with Pagan's Mind and I'm jealous as hell those pesky Norwegians have this band.The opening track The Celestine Prophecy is a statement of intent,an energetic up-tempo opener which sets the tone nicely.Enigmatic Mission is next up,a powerful,controlled piece with excellent vocals and superb instrumental passages.Supremacy,Our Kind opens like Judas Priest and then overlays synths/keyboards and ticks along again at a fair old pace.Coming Home sounds a little like Giuffria (remember them,anyone?) and does not suffer with the comparison.The track Taken is probably the best.If you like Symphony X,this track will appeal to you.It has its own Pagan's Mind stamp on it though,but influences are useful pointers to the potential audience.An ideal album for blasting away the cobwebs on a dull day.

This album is a feast for fans of technical excellence. The music is a mix of Pain of Salvation, Dream Theater and many Neo Prog Metal bands ... but Pagan's Mind manage to create their own recognizable style. The guitar work is stunningly accurate and perfectly in sync with the rhythm group, and the vocals are much better than the genre average ... a bit whiny at times and too much in the high registers for my taste though.

The keyboards are in the background and provide for spherical textures more often than duelling with the guitars or taking the helm themselves, so that's a major difference to Dream Theater. They're very present though, and that emphasizes the Neo Prog influences in their sound, while the guitar dominance makes them sound a bit heavier than their peers ... but I wouldn't go so far as to call them Power Metal.

The Celestine Prophecy: The only weak track on the album. It almost made me rate this album 4 stars ... but that wouldn't be fair.

Enigmatic Mission: Outstanding track that summarizes the album, as the title suggests. It's relatively short, but has several different phases. Awesome!

Supremacy, Our Kind: A really heavy track, the intro is reminiscent of the Derek Sherinian songs with Zack Wylde. But it breaks away soon in a zany piano driven passage which then fuses with the intro guitar riff. Later on there's also a DT like interlude (think Take The Time).

Entrance to Infinity: This reminds me of Queensryche ... a slow spacey 4/4 song, almost like a ballad, but with many interesting stuff going on in the background, and a really cool shift of mood about halfway through the song, and another one near the end. So the song shifts from mysterious/driving to cool/jazzy to uplifting/driving.

Coming Home (instrumental): In this instrumental the keyboards are more dominant, and although it is only 2 1/2 minutes long, it has a really interesting structure.

Celestial Calling: This might be the heaviest track of the album. The riffing reminds of Symphony X, at least in the intro. At 2:22 the song breaks down, and pizzicato strings kick off a really cool segway. After one of the few keyboard solos the song slowly returns to the beginning ... only to disrupt once again into a 2 minute long outro.

Taken: An interesting track which incorporates oriental influences, and the keyboards are really used in an unusual way, emulating rhythm guitar riffs, giving the piece an surreal feeling. The middle third of the song is dominated by guitar solos on top of shifting keyboard layers.

Resurrection (Back in Time): I love intricate technical songs, and this is a prime example. It has an alternating 4/4 7/8 signature, mixed with straight 4/4 passages. It reminds of Vanden Plas a bit, they also have the tendency to combine really straight passages with sudden heavy technical bits.

Appearance (instrumental): A short instrumental, keyboards only. It has a peaceful, ambient character and provides a wonderful contrast to the previous technical onslaught.

Search for Life: The song begins very mellow, with acoustic guitars and piano on top of the textural keyboards of the preceding track - and no drums. It's a nice soft song, which changes about halfway through. Mystical sound effects and a accentuated piano riff kick off a more driving version of the song, with full guitars and drums.

New World Order: This might be my favorite track, it has all of the above, so to say.

Energetic and uplifting!

Couple of years ago I read a book by James Redefield (?) titled as "The Celestine Prophecy" which is basically a book about spiritual journey. Having read the book, I would have not thought that there would be a song with the same title in the style of progressive metal leaning itself onto heavy rhythm section and relatively fast tempo. I would have thought that if a music would ever be created for the book, it should be in the vein of "inspirational moments" kind of music - the kind of music that Kitaro or Vangelis plays, not the one with heavy metal scheme. Yeah, as you know it by now that it's the opening track by Pagan's Mind's "Enigmatic: Calling" that has the same title of the book. In fact, I almost forget what are the key contents of the book. Let's just talk about this album by Pagan's Mind. As far as style concern, this opening track is truly a heavy music with relatively fast tempo and loaded with guitar riffs.

It flows wonderfully with faster tempo track "Enigmatic Mission" (5:17) which in a way reminds me to Queensryche music but in much faster tempo. As usual, vocal line is the key strength of Pagan's Mind music plus the harmony of guitar riffs combined with inventive keyboard solo. Guitar gives the solo part nicely combined with keyboard that gives symphonic nuance. The interesting thing about this song is the speed of music and the harmonies of instruments being played, accompanying the melodic vocal line. "Supremacy, Our Kind" (6:01) brings the music even harder. This time, it's really wonderful how heavy guitar riffs and moldy blend beautifully with keyboard solo. In fact, the keyboard solo just before the first lyrical verse enters the music is really inventive and matches the music. This demonstrates the band's virtuosity and creativity in composing such wonderful and energetic music like "Supremacy, Our Kind". Well, this song is suitable for the power and the glory theme.

The intro part of "Entrance To Infinity" (7:50) serves like a break to the heavy rhythm music the band has played thus far, followed with bass guitar serving as main rhythm section that anchors other instruments into one cohesive whole of music. Tempo-wise, this is slower than previous tracks. The band then demonstrates a good and mind-provoking instrumental piece "Coming Home (Instrumental)" (2:37) - demonstrating great keyboard work - as another break to arrive at "Celestial Calling" (7:01). This track starts off with heavy guitar riffs in fast tempo followed with high register notes vocal line. It's quite bombastic as an intro part. The music is quite varied as it moves along, there are many changes in mood as well as tempo and breaks which make this song is so energetic and entertaining. Again, keyboard solo is really stunning.

"Taken" (7:35) has strong roots in classical music as well as symphonic in nature through nice rhythm section which merges guitar riffs, symphonic keyboard, drums as well as bass guitar. When the vocal enters, it sounds like typical melodic metal plus some inventive and interesting breaks between segments. When the tone is lowering down, I like the music which comprises only bass guitar, drums and simple keyboard work. The album concludes nicely with a political composition "New World Order" (8:11) where George Bush involved in it. The song kicks off elegantly through a stream of music that moves in crescendo. Guitar riffs and keyboard punches still dominate the music that accompanies melodic vocal line. It's an excellent concluding track.

Overall, this album is at par excellent as its predecessor. The music reveals the excellent combination of inventive keyboard as rhythm section or as solo, and guitar riffs and melody. This album would definitely favor those of you who love and can appreciate heavy side of prog music: it's a progressive metal! It's an excellent addition to any prog music collection. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Uneven at best, Enigmatic: Calling is a collection of sci-fi metal left-overs lacking memorable songs or performances-- a let down after the excellent Celestial Entrance.

My biggest problem is with this album's poor song writing; it has very few memorable hooks or melodies and the few that are there are so scattered throughout the album's 65+ minute length that it makes finding them a difficult venture. Because of this, the album has a very bland feel. It's as if the group gave up writing something new in frustration and pulled out cast-off works from their previous albums... and it shows in the feel and energy.

Lofstad earns points in my book for at least trying a few new things with his guitar, but the rest of the group sounds like they're running through the motions here-- especially Rue's vocals. I was very impressed by his range and gusto in Celestial Entrance, but let down here quite a bit. His voice's timbre has lowered, taking some of the edge off from his choruses, and it just doesn't feel like he's enjoying these songs.

Me either.

Songwriting: 2 Instrumental Performances: 4 Lyrics/Vocals: 2 Style/Emotion/Replay: 2

Third album of Norwey best prog metal band, Pagan's Mind, entitled Enigmatic calling from 2005. While is not as good as the predecesor, who was a real prog metal journey for my ears, this one is less convincing with some tracks who sounds like are left behind from previous album. Anyway the musicianship is top notch, the sound is full and fat, but the ideas are not very enthusiatic. The vocal parts are again strong, Nils K. Rue has a great voice, not far from Kai Hansen from Gamma Ray, he has his own range and power, the drummer Stian Lindaas Kristoffersen makes some strong beats, overall is a great one, just listen the instrumental one Coming Home and New World Order, he rocks. Now the keyboards of Ronny Tegner and the guitar of Jørn Viggo Lofstad are the essential things here. They do the hard work on this album, as well like on previouses one's. Some very intristing riffs and chops combined very efficient with nice solos of keys make this album to sound solid. Anyhow this not thier best album, (i remain to Celestial entrance to be the best, and among the best prog metal albums in last 10 years), Enigmatic calling is a good one, but they are on stagnation here, musicaly speaking, maybe because in that period Nils K. Rue was invited by canadian power metal Eidolon to do the vocal parts on some albums. I will give 3.5 rounded to 4, i'm a big fan of this band , but is not as good as the predecesor, but is better than many prog metal albums from that period.

OK... Norway has something to say in our beloved Prog World... listen to them carefully... they really know what to porpuse...

This was the first album I heard from Pagan's Mind and I really get stick to the band and now I have all their albums... OK... is really sad that too many people don't even know the band... is a shame... ´cause this is a "must have" for sure...

This guys use somekind of alien thematics... stargates, divinity entities that are like gods and speak to us or something like that... but the music... it is something like prog-power-metal... heavily influenced by Dream Theater... they even use a couple of references to some songs from the DT guys ("Entrance to Infinity" rings any bell?)... so... if you like DT... you have to hear this... is not a copy, just that is evident the influence...

The quality of the musicians is impressive... they manage to drive a metal sound with very fresh keyboards that works for the ambience and sometimes making nice and melodic solos ala "Kevin Moore early days"... the drums, the heavy riffs, the melodic solos, everything seems to fit in... they don't try to be the fastest, the thoughest, the heaviest... just show they are on the level of whatever prog-metal band out there... and the voice... this is for you if you like DT without James Labries voice... This guy is more a metal singer... with a huge range of pitch...

The production, the concept of the album, the sound and the songwriting... everything speaks from itself... a must wanted... you will love to be on this strange little journey through the skies... great to see that in Norway they have inspiration to achieve something new in this "cliché" world that we live on the now-a-days in prog rock... five stars... for me.. is the best of Pagans Mind...

Pagan's Mind may have an "Enigmatic Calling" but their musical agenda here couldn't be more easily digestible, offering up mostly traditional power metal fare with sufficient influence from progressive metal to add some interesting twists to proceedings. With a futuristic sheen added at points by Ronny Tegner's keyboards, I'm reminded of a mashup of the prog-leaning approach Iron Maiden took on Seventh Son of a Seventh Son with the aesthetic they adopted for Somewhere In Time, which is no bad thing. Vocalist Nils K. Rue takes the opportunity to show off some impressive range to boot, helping set Pagan's Mind ahead of the pack, but the musical backing itself is sufficiently generic that you're only likely to give this heavy rotation if you are very into the more prog-flirting end of power metal.